Women directors in advertising: Surya Balakrishnan

Here’s presenting the first in BE’s special series on female directors in Indian ad worldShephali Bhatt | ETBrandEquity | Updated: November 01, 2016, 09:06 IST

Why there aren’t enough women in leading positions/senior management in *insert industry* is a question that’s bound to give you largely similar answers irrespective of the industry you choose to fill in those asterisks. Even the workaround in most cases could be brought down to three words (or four): A change in mindset. And the first step towards that change is acknowledging its need.

Now, it’s difficult to think of more than 10 names of women ad film directors in Indian advertising. Even 10 is a liberal upper limit perhaps. Is it because production houses prefer male directors to female? Or is it because the adwallahs want to work with male directors only? Or is the client to blame here as well? In Brand Equity’s special series on ‘Women Directors in Advertising’, we will speak to the few female ad film directors about their experience of working in the industry. Over the course of these interactions, we'll try to deduce why the strength of female leaders in the ad films department is confined to the lowest double digit number.

Surya's innate penchant for painting took her to Chitrakala Parishath, Bengaluru, where she did her Bachelor in Fine Arts. Her mother, principal at College of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan (Mumbai), has had a huge influence on her. “I have grown up hearing stories of my mother going for relief work: be it during the Gujarat riots, the Latur plague, or any other crisis.” Doesn’t come as a surprise then that in her fifth and final year at college (2007) she chose to design calendars and posters for an NGO as part of her master submission. She also decided to make a film about the NGO’s work and took up an internship at a production house to learn a few basics.

In 2008, Surya went to the USA to pursue a one year course in filmmaking from New York Film Academy. “When I came back, I knew I had to assist directors to start my career. I joined work the very next day.” She worked with Bauddhayan (Buddy) Mukherji’s Little Lamb Films for two years. {The production house is best known for making the Breakthrough (Bell Bajao) films.}

Right after this, Surya got bitten by the documentary bug. “I was approached by Magic Bus, an NGO that works for the welfare of under-privileged children, and tries to use sports as a tool for their development.” The NGO was sending a football team of 12 Dharavi girls to San Francisco for a summer camp. It was meant to train them to enter the 2012 Olympics. Surya went to the States with these girls, to capture their journey. That documentary is still in the pipeline. “Documentary-making often tends to be a slow process where you need to be doing other things simultaneously to keep that one project going. Those girls make fun of me now and say things like “I know you’re not making any film” in jest.”

Documentary v/s ad films

Some documentaries die while they are in the works. “I worked on a documentary for two years. Eventually I had to stop working on it because the story wasn’t going anywhere. It took me six months to be okay with not working on it anymore.” Documentaries are like relationships, she says. “Like a relationship, you have to be okay with the fact that you may give it everything and it may still not go anywhere.” She likes how advertising process is much shorter (and maybe less painful also) in comparison. “There’s a script to it and at least there’s some money in it, unlike documentaries,” she quips. What she likes best about doing ad films is how each film she makes is so different from the other - there’s so much to learn from one, for the other. Surya isn’t the one to shun rules. She likes how you can bring life to a story while adhering to rules. “Even if it’s a lousy script, you still learn from it,” she feels.

AD no more

Working on the documentary on Dharavi soccer girls made her grow tremendously. So much so that by early 2012, Surya was certain she didn’t want to bean AD (assistant director) anymore. She wanted to move a step ahead. “I started doing corporate films. Music videos would come my way. I did a rendition of the National Anthem that my brother shared on Facebook. It fetched me a call from Gary Grewal of Red Ice Films. He offered me to direct exclusively for Red Ice. I accepted it right away.” She worked with the production house for over two years after which she joined Piyush Raghani’s Like-Minded People for a brief stint. She now works as a freelance ad film director.

No gender bias?

Surya firmly states she hasn’t felt discriminated against in the industry just because of her gender. “The number of filmmakers is unbelievable. Everyone has their own strengths. You get what you get and it’s fine if you don’t. You can’t stress about it. You can’t take work for granted but ultimately you have to understand that it’s an ad and someone has to get it. Many a times you may get a film because you have worked with the same set of people in the past and they decide to give another assignment to you. Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s someone else. You can’t do anything about it.”

Lone woman on the set

Surya often goes for shoots in remote areas. For 90% of her shoots, she’s the only woman on the set and therefore the only person who’ll have questions like, 'What’s the plan for us to pee?' It’s nice to have another girl accompany you on shoots. “But you are so comfortable with your team that it’s always peaceful. In fact, boys take extra care of you because you’re the only girl in the unit.”

Creative men “uncomfortable" around women

It’s not been a rosy path with no roadblocks for her. Only that she has somehow managed to take them roadblocks in her stride as well. “I remember one project where the CD (Creative Director) would just not look at me, or any other woman on the set for that matter. But I never really thought of it as a problem. There was another such incident when we were shooting for a Breakthrough film in Haryana. The men in that village would just not acknowledge you. Doesn’t matter if you’re the director. My AD on the team had to instruct them. There are male actors who don’t feel comfortable with a woman guiding them on the set as well.”

She finds a way to work around these situations; gets other people to send her message across. "I’m happy if someone else is doing the job of telling them what to do as long as they’re doing it right." Ultimately it’s about getting what you want out of them, director sahiba concludes.